


Save that light

by sabrina



Series: They Haunt Us Still [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Because I wanted to mostly, F/M, Have an interlude with a Mara POV, Just straight up Mara/Luke fluff, cause i can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-17 02:17:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11265885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrina/pseuds/sabrina
Summary: Mara & Luke meet for the first time in years. Romance and reminiscing ensues.





	Save that light

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short interlude set after the end of Millions of Miles from Home. I wanted to write something from Mara's perspective, but that doesn't fit in the point of view rotation I've got in the main fic. Obviously much of it will make more sense if you've read the rest of the Haunt Us Still series.

The air through the open breezeway was cool and refreshing after the charged atmosphere of Vjun, or the oppressive feeling of the _Falcon_ as they had flown back with the former Ben Solo sleeping in the cargo bay. Mara Jade found herself relaxing into the Force and into the feeling, just a bit, even if there were yet innumerable dangers that they would need to face in the next few weeks and months -- Even if there was the very good chance that the man she had brought back from Vjun had chosen to come with them so easily in order to gain access to the man she stared at currently silhouetted against the Hapan night. 

She paused in the archway making no sound as she stepped onto the cobblestones. All these years later and she knew still how to walk silently. It had been an essential skillset at one point in time, and now it remained a useful one. After all, while she had assassinated no one for any government in decades, she had found information to be an eagerly acquired material in the decades since the Imperial government had withdrawn from the galaxy. 

The silence held between herself and the man that had not yet acknowledged her presence was comfortable in its familiarity. At one time things might have been more tense, but now they held between them the complete lack of shame that came from knowing another completely and accepting them just as they were, with all of their strengths and all of their weaknesses. Luke Skywalker might have both, but Mara Jade had equal numbers and if he had accepted her with all of those potential deficiencies, she would accept him in return, and just as unabashedly. 

She could feel the touch of his presence at the edge of her mind. It was quiet and direct, and she knew that he was keeping it so contained to stay unnoticed. She marveled that he was even able to do so. 

"I thought you were going to pull yourself in and stay there, Farmboy," she mused aloud. Her words carried softly in the night, but lost themselves among the slate tiles and the marble pillars that made up this wing of the Hapan palace. 

He turned, and she could see light in his blue eyes. That light was rare enough, but it was there and something in her heart rejoiced to see it. So many times in the past few years she had gone looking for it and found only grey the color of a storm sea, not a blue as pure as a cloudless sky. 

"Everyone's a critic," he returned with humor. 

"Only when your safety might depend upon it," she chided, but there was no heat behind it. 

In reality Ren was going to realize that Luke was here sooner rather than later if he had not already realized it. If the Force had led Luke here then maybe she would need to trust there was some reason behind that, even if she intended on watching his back rather intently for as long as it took until she was assured that Ren's motives were true. That might be forever, but Mara was up to taking on that duty.

She stepped across to join Luke at the balcony that overlooked the Hapan countryside. For a moment they stood in relative silence, each aware of the others presence, but unwilling to break the stillness of the moment. Ren was sleeping, and hopefully they would not wake up to tragedy in the morning. Her sense wasn't screaming danger, but then it hadn't been _that_ night either. She frowned, running an index finger across the stone in front of her as her gaze narrowed across the distance. 

"Tell me about Anakin," Luke spoke out loud. 

The words would have carried no further than the small space they inhabited, but they were clear enough for her ears. He remained looking ahead, and she suspected that he too was remaining alert tonight. But alertness didn't bely the opportunity that they might be wrong, or not see the darkness creeping up on them. Sometimes the shadows grew more rapidly than you realized as the light began to wane. 

"He's like you," Mara's initial assessment was easy. As she'd watched the young boy she'd seen it easily in the way Anakin approached things. Not a mirror of the man that stood beside her now, but one that was not so different from the younger, more idealistic young man she'd met many decades ago. Luke didn't respond to this and she hadn't expected him to, and so she went into analytical mode. "He believes in the Force, and in the good the Jedi can bring to the galaxy. He acts instinctively - especially where his heart is concerned - but he's not incapable of more analytical thought or reasoning. He's strong in the Force, at least on par with you, or Ben I'd say. Mechanically inclined, reasonably adept in akaru and niman, and while he doesn't carry two lightsabers, he's capable of handling two in Jar'kai extremely well. He's had practice and experience, and he's able to think outside of the box where the Force is concerned. The impression I have gotten is that he has had to do so." 

Mara knew the silence from Luke didn't indicate that he wasn't listening, but if anything perhaps the opposite - that he was simply running through things. Unlike Anakin, and unlike the younger man that Mara had met originally, Luke tended to stay quiet much more frequently these days. To listen rather than act, and Mara was caught between appreciating that, and wanting to smack it out of him at times. She leaned forward, two elbows on the cool stone in front of her. "Poe says he simply appeared on his ship." 

"Poe Dameron?"

"Yes, he's flying with the Resistance now. You remember Shara & Kes."

"Of course I do. I remember Poe also. I visited Yavin IV a few times early on." 

"When he says appeared on his ship…"

"As they orbited Myrkr," Mara offered. "No explanation besides that. Anakin says he'd previously been on a mission on a worldship surrounding Myrkr. He mentioned a species from the Unknown Regions known as the Yuuzhan Vong that have been creating problems throughout the galaxy. He and some other young Jedi his age had been on a mission on one of their ships to destroy a cross-bred creature that was hunting and destroying Jedi." 

"How did he get from there to here?" Luke ventured. 

"It's the million credit question, but unless Han had another son somewhere along the line and Han's Force sensitive, and able to train Jedi without letting us know..."

"That seems unlikely," Luke responded quietly. 

"It all seems unlikely," Mara returned evenly. "But at this point I am inclined to believe he is who he says he is, and that multiple realities may exist. There have been theories of such presented before - just no evidence." 

"If you're inclined to believe him, then I should just give up all my skepticism." 

Mara hummed. "Don't you do it, Skywalker. I could use your skepticism on a number of fronts, including this one."

For a moment they stood in silence, and Mara wondered if her words had fallen between the seriousness with which she'd intended them, and the jest she'd held in her tone. 

"I think skepticism has come too easily to me of recent, Mara." 

The words were quiet, but wrapped around her like a too heavy blanket, and Mara glanced over. "It's understandable, Luke, and you've always been trusting -"

"It's been a flaw."

"And a strength," Mara returned evenly. "Just as my tendency to lack trust can be a strength and a flaw. Things are not so simple as all that. Anakin has the same tendency to trust. He was the first to trust Ren when he came through, to talk through to him as if he had not put a lightsaber through Han Solo's chest. Rey is more skeptical, and Finn is outright dubious, and I will not blame either of them for that lack of faith. I find myself skeptical where Ren is concerned, but I also have come to trust in the Force and that is on you." 

"I thought that was the only thing necessary once," Luke leaned forward, placing two hands on the cold stone balcony rail and grasping it until his knuckles turned white. 

"Trust in the Force isn't going to necessarily make everything turn out with a chandelier of light: The Force holds darkness too." 

"You don't need to remind me of that." 

For a long moment Mara didn't respond and when she did she returned to the original question that Luke had asked her, because somehow it felt important. "He believes in the Jedi, as you did when I first met you. Yet, his approach feels different at times. I'm certain it has been shaped by his experiences, much as yours have been, but in his galaxy it seems that the Jedi have been more steady, and his belief in them as a help to the galaxy's dark places reflects that." 

"I wonder if that's the right way of it though. The Jedi were destroyed by Palpatine, Mara. And I thought that I could be one and that I could bring others to that path and it would mean something, but I created another monster." 

"I wouldn't think so highly of yourself," Mara responded cooly. "You were hardly the only person in the galaxy responsible for Ren's fall. Mistakes were made -"

"By me."

"- By many individuals along the way," she turned and looked at him furiously even though she knew he could only partially see her expression as she could partially see his. "Don't carry the weight of the galaxy on your shoulders, Farmboy. You ought to know by now that doesn't work, and anyway, it isn't all on you simply because your father was Vader. You do not have to carry the lone work of redemption and forgiveness. That it was left largely to your shoulders is fault that does not rest on those shoulders. That burden was shifted to you by others, and you didn't tell them no. If anything, your largest fault is likely that you are too willing to assume responsibility for darkness you did not create." 

"You can criticise me all you wish, but leave Leia out of it."

"I will, if _you_ don't," Mara could feel her heart beating and she realized that the very practice of calling him out on something she'd seen for years, but been unwilling to verbalize was a conflict she wasn't truly wanting. She may have been an assassin and an Imperial operative, but it was a simple statement of fact with Luke Skywalker that could make her feel shaky. 

"I have been complicit in allowing you to do so for too long. I won't do it again. There is more than one wound here - the one to the galaxy, the one to the Force, and the one to this family. And for any of these to heal, we can no longer sweep things to the shadows. The shadows gave Kylo Ren room to grow." 

Perhaps she'd been too emphatic, for Luke said nothing, but then she felt his Force sense wrapping around her, and she relaxed just a bit. She could feel his frustration, but she could tell that he wasn't truly angry at her. If anything perhaps he was taking her words too much to heart. Well, she couldn't keep him from doing that. He was carrying too much weight. It was not all his burden, perhaps it was not even mostly his burden. If he would take her seriously in reminding him of that, perhaps it would do some good.

"You kept a secret that was asked of you," she stated calmly. "The secret created shadows. That does not rest on you," she reminded him. 

"I should have said no to it, though," Luke breathed out. "You're not wrong about that particular piece, and that _does_ rest on me." 

She reached over, putting her hand on his arm gently. For an instant he didn't move, and while she knew he had to know that she was there, it was almost as if he were actively ignoring her. Then a hand crept over hers, squeezing it gently as it lay on top of it, and she tilted her head up to look at him. She understood more than he realized perhaps.

He had wanted to respect his sister's wishes in regards to their Father, to allow her the space to work through what Luke had largely accepted more easily - and perhaps for good reason. Not unlike Anakin and Rey - Luke and Leia had been granted different experiences with Vader. Leia had seen him destroy her home world, and had lived through him supervising her torture. Luke's experiences had been less direct and the blame for them more easily shifted to the Emperor. It would have affected their perception. And here with Ren, she realized there was a similar situation. Rey had seen Ren kill her father - _their_ father - and Anakin had not even been in this galaxy (presumably) when it had happened. Would this play out again, with Ren and Rey and Anakin, and continue a circle?

Mara hoped not. 

She was tired of circles, and with Luke it felt as if they had moved in circles around each other for decades. He was still the first person who had offered her forgiveness when she'd met him on a backwater world as he sought rumors of ruins of a Jedi temple there. Little had she known that the Empire was still growing out in the Unknown Regions at the time, and the fact that she had known so little spoke only to the reality of her placement in Palaptine's Empire after all. But he had kept her, and she had kept him, and though there were months and sometimes years between seeing each other, somehow they kept circling. 

"I would kiss you if you were not so aggravating," she mused.

"Best I remember," Luke returned evenly, and she could hear the humor in his voice. "You like to kiss me more when I am aggravating." 

"Don't get cocky," Mara quipped back, although there was truth to his words. There always had been. She'd always enjoyed reducing him to jelly under her touch the most when he'd been frustrating her completely. "I doubt you remember how to do any of that, you've been in the wilderness alone for so long." 

He turned to regard her then, and above the beard Mara could see his blue eyes sparkling. "You know I had to think about something to keep me sane alone on an island all by myself." 

"And you're saying that you thought about sex?" Mara turned to face him, a smirk crossing her lips as she did. "How very un-Jedi-Master of you." 

"Maybe it's time for the Jedi to end," his hand slid around her waist. There was an edge of seriousness in his tone that Mara suspected she should think about unpacking, but right now the only thing she wanted to unpack was him. 

She had missed him. And yes there was a nephew that might kill him - it was a worry that still threatened in the back of Mara's mind - and there was another nephew that might not be a nephew at all, and certainly added a complication that had been unexpected. There was a niece who needed further training. There was an Imperial remnant that would need to be dealt with. But all of these things felt unimportant as she slid a hand up against his neck, fingers pressing against his beard, and she tilted her lips up to be kissed as he lowered his lips to her.

In the early days of the Empire, back when Mara Jade had thought that she was deeply important and irreplaceable, there had been rumors that the boys from the Academy, the ones that came in from the outer rim, were frequently some of the best kissers. They had a passion and interest that, even when it was clumsy, could not be found in the more jaded cadets from the core worlds. The first time that Luke had kissed her Mara had upgraded that rumor to substantiated fact. 

Age had only improved that kiss, and distance had intensified it. Mara stepped up, sliding her other hand up around his neck and meeting the one already there behind him. Luke's prosthetic hand was coming up on her cheek, and his tongue was sliding against her lips as if he knew he belonged there. He did. Of course he did. 

Mara could feel his Force sense, the rush of desire and passion that laced through it, and she rather suspected her own was equally felt by him. His tongue was warm, and her tongue was exploring his mouth, pressing back against his, and she was nearly out of breath. She drew back, pulling in a breath as she did so. 

"Did you have a complaint to file?" 

"You aren't kissing me currently," she threw back at him. "Did you forget how to keep going?"

His fingers slid down her cheek, tracing her jawline and down her neck. His lips leaned forward, feather light touches pressed against the pulse at the base of her ear, and then he whispered into her ear. "You're the one who pulled back."

"Shut up, Farmboy," and she followed her command up with her lips, to ensure that he did so. 

This kiss was deeper, familiar, and yet it built desire through her. Her body knew precisely what to do with this, and precisely also what it had been denied for years now. The sense of him in the Force only encouraged her. She didn't pull back this time, nipping instead gently at his lips to pull a breath before she pushed back in. The beard was new, and she couldn't quite decide if she liked it or not, running fingers along his chin and marveling at the feel of surprisingly soft hair covering it. When Luke pulled back this time, it was to leave his lips against her jawline. 

"We should go back to my room," he murmured in her ears. 

"You don't want to fuck in the middle of the Queen Mother's palace?" she couldn't help the giggle rising at the use of terms. It felt like something that belonged on the lips of a woman much younger. "It feels so very Hapan." 

"That." Luke was pressing lips down the line of her neck, punctuating each word as he did so. "Queen. Mother. Was one of my students, so…. No," but his tone was bemused. 

"You need to learn how to ask a girl to your room," her breath caught as his tongue slid across her earlobe. 

"Dearest Mara," he murmured against her earlobe. "Come to my room and I will undress you, and massage every tense muscle in your body, and then make beautiful, passionate love to you." 

Mara's breath caught in her chest. The words 'you're a terrible Jedi' died on her lips. After all, that was probably not the best thing to tell him, even in jest. 

"You're ridiculous and how many romantic holodramas did you watch to learn to speak that way?" she asked instead, but she pulled an arm around his waist and tugged him close. 

They lingered in the breezeway, arms wrapped around each other, and Mara sliding dangerously into the desire to only think about Luke Skywalker and nothing else. Not the Dark side master that they would need to face eventually, or the nephew that might be here to try to kill him, or that even if this wasn't true, tomorrow would still be a challenge that would need to be worked through sooner rather than later. It was a dangerous indulgence that she couldn't afford and neither could he, so she pulled back and brought a hand up to cup his jawline. 

"We should find your room," she said softly. 

Luke nodded, his eyes seeming to look off into the distance for a moment. 

She turned to glance where he was looking, even though she knew there would be nothing there. She'd thought he was going to pull his Force sense in more than he seemed to be. Then again perhaps he'd been spending more time learning new tricks she wasn't aware of in the past few years. 

Had it really been years since she'd seen him last? 

His arm slid behind her back and supported her as he turned them both towards the hall and his room. They walked in silence now, the fevered rush of touch and the potential of the evening shadowing them through the mostly dark halls. 

The last time she and Luke had been together had been in a grey port near the outer rim and he'd given her only the smallest amount of information about what he planned. She knew he'd found something that he believed was important to understanding the Jedi, the path he'd been trying to train others in, and she'd known that he intended to seek it out and to grow and learn from that place. The pain in his eyes, and anguish in his whole body had left her feeling bruised. 

He hadn't allowed her to pull him into his arms, and she had suspected if he'd been projecting at all in the Force at that time, that she would have heard something akin to screaming. She hadn't pushed. It hadn't been the time or the place, but she had refused to let him leave without some means to contact him. He could offer it, she'd told him, or she would track him down, and he knew she could do it, but it would be more likely that someone else would be able to follow her trail. 

He'd given in, pressing a kiss to her lips before he'd gotten in his X-wing and flown off. And Mara had headed to a cantina for a job, and then flown off to deliver things across Republic space, although her mind had stayed with Luke Skywalker. Had she ever imagined how much mental energy she would devote to Skywalker back in the day, she likely would have likely sought him out and killed him much earlier - on the principle that she did not have time for this. 

Granted, that would have left her without this warm touch in this particular moment, so Mara couldn't regret her life choices: At least not the one where she let Skywalker live. 

They reached his room without incident and he opened the door. Mara reached out into the Force as they entered, seeking for any type of danger or unseen complication. But the room was as quiet as the hall had been. If Ren planned to do anything, he seemed to be biding his time. That was understandable if somewhat frustrating. If it were her she would have wanted to wait until people had a false sense of security. It meant only that she would need to be on guard for longer. If it were a trick of endurance Mara had no intention of losing. 

For now though, the door had closed behind them, and Luke had reached an arm around her waist and pulled her close. "So many nights I have drifted to sleep wondering where you were and what you were doing," he murmured into her ear. 

"Careful, Farmboy, someone will think you're a romantic." 

He chuckled low, and his hands slid up her neck. "You already know that I am and I know you can keep your secrets." 

She found his lips then, pressing against them with an abandon she had not allowed herself to give in the hall. He was not the only one who had fallen asleep at night wondering and trying to reach across distance in the Force to connect, but that was something she would never admit to out loud. Then again, she could feel him wrap around her in the Force, and she wondered if it was necessary to admit to it aloud. He knew, likely, just as she knew he was a ridiculous romantic underneath all of that Jedi exterior. 

"Did you accomplish what you planned to?" She murmured as she pulled back, dropping a kiss to his neck, and another to his chin, even with the beard there. 

He was silent for a moment, but it was a thinking silence, the sort that would birth words eventually and Mara let it linger on to wait for them to come together. They had spoken so very little and he had given her only a hint of what he had been looking for. It had been frustrating to her to see him so single minded in his pursuit of something that he couldn't articulate easily. 

"I think what the Jedi were as we knew them, and what the Jedi began as, are so very, very different that it is difficult to see them as even the same." 

There was more to it than that and Mara was certain of it, so she locked her arms behind his neck and leaned into the sturdy feeling of his chest, solid like one of his Force trees, and equally alive with intentionality and light. "That is to be expected, I would think. They've been around for generations, the knowledge would change. The expectations would change, and understanding." 

"This is more than that," Luke seemed to hesitate. "Of course those things are true. They're also obvious and this is more subtle." 

"You're not explaining it well," Mara raised an eyebrow at him. 

"Perhaps that's because I'm distracted," Luke's voice held that hint of mischief that she had once been so used to from him, but that had felt so far away from him when she'd first seen him here on Hapes.

"Are you blaming me for being distracting?" Mara laughed lightly, leaning into kiss him. 

"I wouldn't dream of it," Luke leaned in to nuzzle her neck. 

Mara allowed the questions to fade as she pressed her own lips back to Luke's. Perhaps a younger her might have insisted that they stay focused, that they plot deep into the night, and that they be prepared for every eventuality. More experienced her, however, understood that while those things needed to happen, so too did the opportunities that could only be grabbed in the current moment, and that were sometimes more elusive than preparation, and in their own way equally valuable. Whether she appreciated it more now than as a younger woman, she really couldn't say, but the difference in years and distance had not left her more frequently touched, and so leaning into that felt just as welcome as it had the first time. The strength granted through the intimate knowledge of the other just as heartening. 

Curled under sheets of a softness that were only likely to be found in the sort of royal palace estates they were currently in, Mara rested her head on Luke's chest, well aware of the beating heart contained within, and wrapped in a sort of fuzzy awareness of him. For a moment she was a younger woman once again. 

A breeze rippled through the curtains at the window and Mara's attention was drawn up to it. In theory there were force fields on the windows, she knew, but there was also that question of - typically force fields could keep out the drafts as well. She propped herself up on her elbow and watched it in the dim light of the room. 

"You know it isn't anything," Luke's voice was low and rumbly, more relaxed than he'd been before. And he ought to be, really. She'd worked rather diligently to that end. 

"Better to check it than to assume and be caught with one's trousers down," Mara reached for one of her hairpins and tossed it at the window. The small piece of metal bounced off the field and back into the room. Likely the internal climate control had kicked on, and created the draft that moved the curtains.

"My trousers are already down." 

Mara could feel the smirk in the Force and she turned back to him, trying to keep the smile from taking over her face as she rolled her eyes. "You should be careful." 

"Too late for that I think." 

She swatted at his arm, but settled back down in next to him, relaxed enough at the window to slide back into the night. 

"Will you stay in hiding tomorrow?" she asked softly. 

"No," Luke said simply. "I will go to breakfast with the others. If Ben will make a move, then he will make a move then."

Mara didn't love that, but she also didn't have a better idea. She suspected that if he didn't make a move then - that it didn't mean they could trust him - but it would at least get the initial meeting out of the way and she could watch him and gather data. "And if he doesn't?" she asked the question quietly into the night. 

"Then he doesn't make a move, and we watch him, but we can move forward." 

"He told us he wanted to be called Ren, that his grandfather gave him that name." 

There was a dose of almost ice and Mara drew her hand off of Luke's chest. "Skywalker," she questioned. 

"His name is Ben, Mara." 

"To you maybe, to Leia, but not to him. Look, I know this is going to sound as if I'm apologizing for him, and I hope that you know me well enough to know that I am not and will not, but I know something of shaping an identity in the aftermath of having been lied too. And if he is genuine in what he is telling us - that is what he is doing now. That's the path he is on, and he will have to face the demons that he has leaned into and created over these past few years. If part of that is him choosing another name then it seems to me, that's not an asteroid belt we should die on. There are other things more worthy of that fight." 

"I've missed you." 

"I'll carry no blame for that," Mara mused, dropping a kiss on Luke's chest. "I had to fight to get you to even give me contact information." 

There was some silence and then he breathed in and let the air out. "I may have been wrong there."

"Nobody's perfect, Farmboy." 

"I need to see him tomorrow. And it's not just about whether or not he is safe. I'm not certain it's about him at all." 

"He's not the boy you'll remember, Luke." 

"I know." 

The silence of the room settled around them and the possibilities of tomorrow threatened to press up against the peace of tonight. Mara pushed them away knowing only one thing: the man in front of her had endlessly sought light even from the shadows and even when those shadows threatened to overtake him he had gone after the light. 

"I feel like this path has already been written - what did I do wrong?" 

Mara slid her fingers into Luke's as she contemplated the answer to this. The easy answer of course was that he did nothing wrong. The more difficult one was more complicated and not one that Mara was even certain that she had the answer to. What had gone wrong was at once larger than Luke or Leia or even Ren. It was a web far larger than any single thread. And yet at the same time it was a series of choices that they had all made, and Ren in particular had made. "It does not rest on you," she said simply. "As I said before. Don't carry it." 

"But I was the Jedi, the last, the one that was supposed to restore the Order, and now all I can think is maybe I never should have tried." 

"Did you doubt that it was the right thing to do at the time?" Mara asked him. 

"No, of course not," Luke's voice was low. "It was the necessary thing, the task that had been set before me - even if I didn't know precisely how to do it." 

"Then it was what you needed to do," Mara suggested. 

"I don't think it's that simple, that's suggesting that if Ben believed that it was the right thing to kill Han, that it was the thing he needed to do at that time. That's nonsense." 

Mara paused, was that what she was saying? "That's assuming that Ben believed it was the right thing, which isn't something we can necessarily know at this time," she responded. "But there is a role for faith here, and you had faith in the Force, in the Jedi, in what you had been taught. Do you truly regret it?" 

After a moment's pause Luke breathed out. "No. I regret what came of it. I'm still not sure I like the other idea though." 

"Maybe it needs some work as a philosophy," Mara smirked. 

"Maybe." 

And she could feel the answering smirk in his words. 

"Tomorrow," she suggested, sliding her hand suggestively across his chest and down his abdomen towards his hip bones. 

"Mara." 

"Hmm?" She shifted to find his lips with hers as her fingers found the edge where his leg met his torso and ran along them. 

"You're -" 

She found his lips and cut his protest short. Yes, they were older, and yes, she knew that he wasn't as young or as ready as he might once have been. But really, what was the use of Force mastery if you couldn't make it work for you sometimes?


End file.
